Nikolai Orelov
Nikolaï Andreievich "Kolya" Orelov was a Russian Master Assassin during the Russian Revolution and the main character of Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia. Nikolaï was responsible for several notorious events during his career as an Assassin; in 1888, when tasked with assassinating Tsar Alexander III, the fight that ensued between the two men accidentally caused the Borki train disaster. Twenty years later, in an attempt to retrieve the Imperial Sceptre from a facility inTunguska, Nikolaï's failure to acquire the artifact in time caused the object to explode, as Nikola Tesla broadcast a burst of electricity to it, resulting in a massive explosion that was later known as the Tunguska event. He is also the great-grandfather of Daniel Cross, an individual who would go on to cause the near fall of the Assassin Order generations later. Biography Early life Orelov was born in the latter half of the 19th century. His father, Andrei, immigrated to Russia and became a devoted member of the Narodnaya Volya, a left-wing terrorist offspring of the Russian Assassin Brotherhood. He decided to raise Nikolaï as an Assassin as well, and so he had him start his training at a young age. In the Assassin Order, Nikolaï befriended Aleksandr Ulyanov and his younger brother, who would later go by the name Vladimir Lenin. On 20 May 1887, Nikolaï witnessed the execution of Aleksandr after the latter was captured during a failed assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III. As the rope was put around Aleksandr's neck, he pointed his finger towards Nikolaï, meaning that he found Nikolaï guilty for not rescuing him. This traumatic event caused Nikolaï to have nightmares for the following year. Borki train disaster Sometime in 1888, Nikolaï woke in bed after having another nightmare about the death of his close friend, Aleksandr Ulyanov. He confided in his wife, Anna, that he felt deeply responsible for his death, to which she told him that Alek knew the risks when he joined the Brotherhood. Nikolaï then mentioned to her that the Mentor had tasked him with assassinating Tsar Alexander III, an ally of theTemplar Order, in order to loosen the Templars' grip on the region. Anna wished him safety in his mission, for she needed him to help raise their child, with whom she was pregnant. Nikolaï rode on horseback to Crimea the next morning, chasing the Imperial train. After infiltrating it, Nikolaï killed several patrollingguards and extorted information from another. Making his way to the royal carriage, Orelov burst through a door with his gun raised, but he was shocked to find the entire Royal family traveling, despite having been told that only the Tsar was aboard. In response, Alexander III attacked him from behind for threatening his family, and the two engaged in a scuffle. However, Nikolaï managed to stab Alexander in the right kidney, though the Tsar was not seriously injured. Meanwhile, in the middle of the fight between the two men, the train careered off the tracks and crashed. Whilst Nikolaï was recovering from the crash, Alexander III began to beat Orelov down while taunting him about killing his loved ones. Following this, Alexander pulled out a Staff of Eden from a box amongst the remains of the dining cart and challenged the Assassin to kill him with it, throwing the Staff over to Nikolaï. Despite wielding the Staff and relying upon his Assassin training, Nikolaï was defeated by the physically superior Alexander, but was spared death when the Tsar's children came into view. Shamed, Nikolaï fled to report his failure to the Order. At some point within the next twenty years, Nikolaï and Anna's child was somehow "lost", before or after it was born, causing Nikolaï to become bitter and filled with anger, which caught the attention of his Brothers. Tunguska event In 1908, the Assassins captured a Templar named Dolinsky, who was tortured by Orelov, in order to reveal where the Staff of Eden had gone following his failure. During this, two other Assassins were present, and one noted that Nikolaï's methods were extremely harsh, while the other replied that it was because Orelov had lost his child. Under threats to his family, Dolinsky revealed that the facility that housed the Staff was located in Siberia, to which Orelov set off for Tunguska. The Mentor requested that Nikolaï and his fellow Assassins retrieve the Staff of Eden, which was being tested with electrical machines based upon designs stolen from their ally, Nikola Tesla. While approaching the facility, which had a Tesla coil built above it, Orelov explained to the others that Tesla stood ready with his teleforce weapon in America, ready to destroy the facility, and noted that they had to make haste to retrieve the object. At once, Nikolaï and his comrades stormed the facility, killing all of the Templar guards and scientists within, though by the time Orelov had reached the top, the Staff of Eden had been activated by the electrical current. He then heard voices coming from the artifact, saying things such as "Always the fighter", "Adam, I have it", "Just like your father", and "Eve". At that moment, the vengeful Tesla activated his weapon with the words "Rot in hell, Thomas", and the facility was destroyed while the Staff and the Assassins were still within it. Orelov proved to be the only survivor, laying with his clothes in tatters on the explosion's edge, mumbling that the Staff had been destroyed. Soon after, Nikolaï returned home to Anna, "bleached and broken", who welcomed him with a look of horror and grief. A few years after the event, Nikolaï and Anna had another child, a daughter named Nadya. Search for the shard In 1917, Vladimir Lenin led a revolution against the Tsarist royal house. Lenin had personally sent a letter to Nikolaï, asking for him to dispose of Tsar Nicholas II, and eliminate the last symbol of Imperialism. Nikolaï infiltrated Nicholas' residence, asking him for the location of the Staff, which he had spotted on a picture of the Tsar. Nicholas, threatened, brought Nikolaï to the Staff, though the Assassin was quickly able to conclude that it was a fake; he said that the real Staff had a light shining from within, and that when one looked into it, they could see "the turn of the world and a glimpse of what lies beyond". With this, Nikolaï broke the fake Staff, proving it was indeed a replica. When Nicholas asked him to spare his family if Nikolaï intended to kill him, just like he had spared his father's, the Assassin replied that he wouldn't, saying that he didn't "care any longer" and that he only wanted to make sure that the Staff was indeed destroyed. However, he did warn Nicholas that the next Assassin to come after him wouldn't be as objective. Nikolaï proceeded to leave the building via a window, but not before hearing Nicholas confirm to him that Grigori Rasputin had worn a splinter around his neck, which was of the same material as the Staff, according to Nikolaï's in-depth description. Traveling to Krasnoyarsk, the aged Assassin scaled the walls of the city's asylum and broke into the cell holdingKhioniya Guseva, one of Grigori Rasputin's former disciples, who had attempted to assassinate him. Nikolaï offered to free Guseva in exchange for the information he sought, forcibly taking her by the hand and leading her from the building. After bribing a priest, the two took refuge in the city's Svyato-Troitsky Cathedral. Guseva then revealed the details of her attempt on Rasputin's life; how, despite her stabbing and mutilating him where he stood, Rasputin survived the attempt, thanks to his shard from the Staff. She then informed Nikolaï that her facial wounds had been self-inflicted, with her own hands being controlled by Rasputin and the shard. At her request, Nikolaï then ended Guseva's life with hisHidden Blade and set her down gently. Following this, Nikolaï and two other men went to search for Rasputin's grave, and upon finding it, the three dug up the body. Examining the corpse, Nikolaï searched for the splinter that Nicholas II had mentioned, discovering it and then returning to Anna, who was waiting for him in their carriage. One last mission In July 1918, months after the October Revolution, a disillusioned Orelov decided to retire from the Assassins and leave the country with his family. Needing false documents to escape the turmoil in Russia and unable to get it through the Assassins without revealing his departure, Orelov decided to accept one last mission for the Brotherhood hoping to find some money to buy new identities for his family. Traveling to Saint Petersburg, Orelov met another Assassin who tasked him with stealing Ezio's Precursor box, which according to informants was in possession of the Tsar's family, who were kept prisoners by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg. Once there, Nikolaï discovered that the artifact was also coveted by the Templars, who had infiltrated the ranks of the Red Army and were planning the death of the Romanovs. While in the city, Orelov also found safes containing jewels left untouched by the looters and took possession of them in order to finance his departure. Infiltrating the house where the Romanovs were kept, Nikolaï witnessed the murder of the Imperial family but reached Princess Anastasia, who was holding the box, in time to secure the artifact. However, as Nikolaï was taking the Precursor box from Anastasia's hands, the shard of the Staff around his neck and the box interacted, and the girl was somehow imprinted with the genetic memories of Chinese Assassin Shao Jun. Suffering from a kind of Bleeding Effect, Anastasia became overwhelmed by Jun's skills and memories and the older man decided to take her under his protection and bring her to the Brotherhood in Moscow in the hope that the Assassins could heal her. Pursued by both the Bolcheviks and the Templars, the two escaped from Yekaterinburg by hiding on a train and in September, after evading their pursuers, eventually arrived in Kazan. While the city was in the midst of a civil war with the Red Army about to launch an assault to retake the city from their enemies, Nikolaï hoped to find help from his good friend and leader of the army, Leon Trotsky. He left the box in the care of Anastasia and ordered her to stay hidden until his return. Evading the numerous soldiers in Kazan, Nikolaï found Trotsky in an isolated house. Unfortunately for Nikolaï, Trotsky thought that Anastasia was too dangerous as a symbol to be left alive and for the sake of the Revolution, having deduced that Nikolaï would come to him, had betrayed his friend to the Templars who captured the Assassin. While Nikolaï was tortured by the Templars who wanted to know the location of both the box and Anastasia, the girl, worried about Nikolaï, decided to look for him. Using the abilities of Jun, Anastasia eventually reached the house where the Templars were keeping Nikolaï, and after eliminating all of them, she freed her amazed protector. The two then escaped the city, with Orelov covering the girl from the rooftops, sniping every guard in Anastasia's path. They successfully reached the Volga and sailed on a boat toward Moscow. Breaking with the Brotherhood Once in Moscow, Nikolaï and Anastasia were met by the Assassin scientist Sergei who, after receiving the Precursor box, also assured Nikolaï that he would bring the princess to the Mentor to find a cure for her conflicted personalities. Despite Nikolaï wanting to go with the girl, Sergei sent him to the Assassins' local bureau to make a report on the latest events. While waiting at the bureau, Nikolaï overheard other Assassins talking about Anastasia's condition and the fact that she was now like a living Precursor artifact; the Mentor and Sergei wanted to extract Jun's memories from Anastasia through a process that would probably kill her or leave her barely human. Caring for the girl he had protected during the last two months, and enraged by his Brothers' lies about their dishonorable projects for Anastasia, Nikolaï decided to fight against his Brothers and save her. Extracting the location of the facility where Anastasia was kept from an Assassin he threatened, Nikolaï rushed toward theKremlin, trying to knock out the Assassins chasing after him instead of killing them when it was impossible to avoid them. Nikolaï ran through the city by traveling on the roof of the tramways and then through the sewage system before being joined by Ilia, an Assassin who, by friendship toward Orelov, decided to help him by giving him the access codes to the laboratories. Once in the underground laboratories, Nikolaï freed Anastasia from her captors. Working together, they managed to escape and reached the surface, also destroying the laboratories in the process. As they believed to be safe, a tank driven by Assassins appeared and Nikolaï told Anastasia to flee and wait for him at the Bolshoi Theatre as he was taking care of it. Chased throughout Moscow by the tank, Nikolaï eventually succeeded in destroying it by shooting at its weakest points with his rifle. Nikolaï later met Anastasia at the Bolshoi, where he gave her the false documents originally destined for his wife and part of the documents he had managed to buy for himself and his family. Now known as Anna Anderson, Anastasia made her farewells and left after having told Nikolaï that she was heading for Germany and that she was confident in her ability to control the memories of Shao Jun and keep being herself. Move to the United States After betraying his brothers to save Anastasia, Nikolaï finally carried out his plan to definitely leave both his country and the Assassin Order. Along with their daughter, Nadya, Nikolaï and Anna crossed Russia's borders and boarded a ship that was bound for the United States, aided by using the power of the Staff's shard. Some time later, Anna gave birth to their second child, a son by the name of Innokenti. During the Palmer Raids of 1919, Nikolaï and his family were at a bar with other Russian immigrants in Hartford, Connecticut, when agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stormed the building. Nikolaï, Anna, Nadya and Innokenti attempted to make their escape, but Nikolaï and Innokenti were separated from their family while trying to fend off their attackers. Anna and Nadya were captured and later deported back to Russia, while Nikolaï attempted to chase after them. For the next two years, he attempted to find clues to their whereabouts, breaking into compounds where immigrants were held for deportation, though Nikolaï only managed to uncover that they had been transferred to Finland, a country at war with Russia. After hearing a rumor that some prisoners were shot by Finnish soldiers after having crossed the Russian border, and not hearing anything that indicated Anna or Nadya's survival, Nikolaï became convinced that they had perished. For the next years, Nikolaï lived in seclusion with his son in a cabin in the woods near Manchester, Connecticut.They scraped together a life, cutting wood from trees and hunting the wildlife in the forest. In 1926, Nikolaï was tracked down by his former Assassin brother Sergei, who was sent to retrieve Nikolaï by the Mentor, as the Assassins claimed ownership of the Staff's shard and the knowledge of Nikolaï's vision at Tunguska. After Sergei threatened Innokenti's life, Nikolaï attacked him and strangled him to death. Nikolaï then discovered an FBI badge in Sergei's pocket, and realized that more Assassins would come after him. Final showdown Over the course of the next two years, Nikolaï began training Innokenti in combat and stealth, in the hope that they might be well prepared for the inevitable. Nikolaï's training consisted of himself being Innokenti's practice target, and his harshness often resulted in Innokenti being forced to sleep outside with a meager meal upon his failures. One day, when Innokenti was able to overpower his father and held his knife at Nikolaï's throat, Nikolaï knew his son was ready and strong, and together they began to prepare for the oncoming Assassin attack. Part of these plans involved the pair abandoning their cabin, since they had rigged it with explosives. As a result, when the team of Assassins arrived, one of them attempted to open a window, which caused the cabin to explode and leave only five Assassins alive. Next, when the Assassins tracked down Nikolaï and Innokenti's makeshift camp in the woods, Nikolaï was able to rapidly kill three of the Assassins, though he was shot in his right leg by a fourth one. As one of the Assassins held Nikolaï at gunpoint, Innokenti snuck up on him from behind and stabbed him in the neck, saving his father's life. From there, the two proceeded to make their escape, coming to a halt at a cliff. Nikolaï told his son to throw a rope to the other side and use his rifle to slide down, in a makeshift zipline. As Nikolaï prepared to follow his son, he was shot in his left foot by the remaining Assassin, and with both his legs wounded, Nikolaï was left at the Assassin's mercy. Holding Nikolaï up by his shoulders, the Assassin yelled out to Innokenti and revealed that his sister was still alive, though Nikolaï denied the Assassin's claims and told Innokenti to "be strong". To this, Innokenti understood his father's intention and shot him, killing both Nikolaï and the Assassin. 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